


when gravity meets the ground

by buckyjerkbarnes



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Family Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Back Together, I just... I just love the carolmaria dynamic, I wanted to call this fic "let's go lesbians", Kissing, Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), The Author Regrets Nothing, but I thought we'd keep it a little more poetic, pre-Captain Marvel (2019), some depictions of non-explicit sex, the brunt of this takes place before the film, we love supportive wives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-13 19:24:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18037394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyjerkbarnes/pseuds/buckyjerkbarnes
Summary: It’s a fight she’d never try to win, a fall she’d never try to recover from.[Or: Carol and Maria- before, during, and after the events of Captain Marvel.]





	when gravity meets the ground

**Author's Note:**

> tbh I'm just incoherently screaming right now. I could literally watch hours and hours of carolmaria and not get tired of their dynamic
> 
> 3/14/19: I appreciate ya’ll so much for 400 kudos! Thank you!

They met fresh out of basic.

As the only two women in their squadron, it was a bit of cliche they’d fall together. Carol would watch the too-straight line of Maria’s back from under the tinted lens of her aviators, would note how Maria forced her smiles and her laughs, embraced the shared experiences of the other Air Force pilots, the mass of testosterone. The moment one of them said some unsavory shit, implied that women were the weaker sex and thus neither Carol nor Maria had any business trying to fly, well.

“Holy shit,” Carol breathed on the edge of a laugh. “I’m sorry. Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I—,” she held Maria’s hand between both of hers, angled it into the light peaking through the hanger. “I think you broke something.”

Maria grimaced, but she din’t look particularly upset about it. “Blake deserved it.”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Carol nodded, the bun at the nape of her neck half-undone. She had to tuck lose strands behind her ears more often than not, push them away when they fell into her face. “He totally did. I only wish I’d had it on film— watch it over and over again.”

That lack of regret began to collapse in on itself, charging up and bursting from Maria in an anxious steam: “I’m a black woman that punched a white man. Shit, I’m gonna get my ass handed to me.”

Carol gave her shoulder a squeeze, hoping to drive the anxious edge in her voice away. “I won’t let that happen.”

Maria huffed, sardonic. “I appreciate your confidence, Danvers, but until I see it, ‘scuse me if I have my doubts.”

She didn’t know what she planned to do. It was only after five and they had all night for her to figure it out. Carol had a knack for working out the tough shit and ten minutes in Maria’s close proximity told her when they put their heads together, they’d be plenty able to get out of the shit just fine.

“Let’s get your mind off it, yeah? Wanna grab a drink?”

Maria said nothing for a minute, eyes flicking over Carol’s face. What she was searching for, Carol hadn’t the slightest, but something seemed to click as Maria flashed her a blinding smile.

“Now you’re speaking my language.”

 

 

Monica was no bigger than a loaf and a half of bread, the first time Maria let Carol meet her.

"I'm sorry if she starts to cry," Maria said, the bags under her eyes practically bruises. If Carol knew for sure it wouldn't hurt her, she’d rub her thumbs over them, would sit Maria down so she might sleep for more than an hour before she snapped awake to take on the world. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Carol assured her. She knew full well how big of a step it was that Maria was trusting Carol enough to bring her around her daughter, knew better than to do anything that would put her off. “I won’t be offended.”

She’d seen photos, of course. Maria had one of those plastic inserts with about twenty images to be tucked and pressed into her wallet, all of them of Monica’s round, beaming face. She was no more than nine months old and Carol would never admit she already collected a couple gifts for Monica’s first birthday in a duffle on the floor of her closet.

“Hi,” Carol smiled, pitching her voice low as not to startle. “Hi, lovely.”

Monica gave her a critical look, almost hyper-focused in that way only babies are capable of. Her mouth wobbled and Carol brushed a curl from her face, tapping a tender finger to the end of her nose. It got Monica to giggle, only laughing all the harder when Carol grinned in triumph. With a bit of maneuvering, Monica balanced in Carol’s arms, her little fists patting delightedly at Carol's cheeks. She had thick eyelashes and a gummy smile, eyes big and brown and bright as stars. Next to her mother, Monica was the prettiest thing Carol'd ever seen. 

"Well, I'll be damned." 

She slanted a look Maria's way, cocked an eyebrow. "Are you surprised?" 

"Just a bit, yeah. She’s never taken to someone so quick before." 

"I'm just impressive like that," Carol grinned. Monica let out a soft coo, teetering forward until she had her forehead pressed to Carol’s chin, babbling out sweet nonsense as Carol smiled and smiled and smiled.

She blinked against the sudden camera flash.

“What?” Maria prompted, having whipped out the device with an impressive swiftness. This was the woman who had an entire scrapbook of photos just of Monica’s first day on earth, after all. Carol ought to get used to having her picture taken, found, upon further thought, she didn’t mind the prospect in the least. “That’s the cutest shit I’ve ever seen and you expect me not to document it?”

“Only if you get me a copy,” Carol said, bouncing her new best friend in her arms. Monica was trying to eat her hair, had a hold of a thick blonde lock and Carol couldn’t help but laugh. “Woah, there Trouble. Don’t do that.”

“That’s Lieutenant Trouble to you,” Maria said, and the camera flashed again.

 

 

Maria and Monica quickly became It. All Carol could hope for. All she could ever want or need. 

They’re all she has. There’s no use sugarcoating that, not when it’s the truest thing Carol’s ever known. She has pictures of them in her locker, maintains her schedule around them, is at Maria’s place more often than she’s at her own. When her lease is up in two months, Carol's pretty sure she’ll make no move to renew it.

They are her family and she is fortunate enough to be considered the same in return. It’s a stunning observation, realizing how lonely she’d been before they came into her life, before they settled into the caverns of her heart and filled her with light.

Another truth, a contender for the top slot:

Carol was in love with Maria.

It was easy as flying, as exhilarating as a dog fight high above the ground, tumbling, tumbling, evading until out of the line of fire. It was just _easy._ Their casual touches, their inside jokes. The way Maria was so quick to support her in anything and everything and how it was instinctual for Carol to do the same. It was easy to love Maria’s fierceness, her bite, how her eyes could be so soft or so severe depending on who she was looking at.

She took the better part of three years to realize as much, felt her heart stutter to a halt at Monica’s fourth birthday party. It was just the two of them and Monica, a cupcake with three pink candles, and Monica swiped icing across her mother’s nose and Maria’s laugh was the sweetest god damn song Carol’d ever heard.

She was a goner, is the thing.

It’s a fight she’d never try to win, a fall she’d never try to recover from.

 

 

Blake’s cockpit stunt left her with a bad taste in her mouth, made even more sour given he’d been one beer away from falling on his own ass while Carol was barely buzzed. She didn’t try to punch his lights out no matter how much she wanted to, didn’t try to glare a hole through his head especially since he was too inebriated to even take notice of her vitriol.

"You're totally imagining kicking him in the balls right now aren't you?”

Her mouth twitched upright, and she bumped her elbow into Maria's. "Nah. I'm more creative than that." 

Maria snorted, tipping back the rest of her beer with a wry grin. "Put his tiny dick in a blender, right?" 

If she hadn't been expecting such sharp wit, Carol would have spewed her drink all over their booth. She damn near choked on her tongue anyway. "Now you're talking." 

They play pool and drink and spend a stupidly long time determining which song they’d like to perform on the karaoke machine, taking advantage of the fact Maria’s parents were watching Monica for the night. It’s after one before she and Maria stumbled into the dark, giggling like children with Maria bellowing out the chorus to "I Got You, Babe" by Sonny and Cher. Carol hooked her arm around Maria's neck, smacking a kiss to her temple as she fished her keys out of her pocket. 

(If she let her mouth linger against Maria’s skin, that was her business alone.)

The drive was warm and there was an electricity fizzling in the air, like the brief spark before a wildfire roared into existence. Maria’s hand was so near enough that, if Carol so chose, she could link their fingers together. She stared at those work-worn fingers so long she almost ran off the road and Maria’s hand shot out to grip at her wrist, stayed there even after Carol steadied the vehicle.

Pulling into the driveway, Carol cut the engine, leaving them to be embraced by the night and the mutters of the summer’s cicadas. She pocketed the keys, glancing to and finding herself caught by Maria’s own gaze— Carol didn’t have a clue how many minutes had lapsed where she’d been quietly observing, didn’t want to burst the ginger soap bubble to ask.

She was the most beautiful person in the world, so warm. So soft. So close and not close enough. 

“Hey,” Carol whispered, glad for the lack of a central console for how she could scoot in to press their thighs together.

“Hey, yourself.”

She exhaled a soft laugh, eyes crinkling at the corners as she tipped her forehead into Maria’s. Carol could feel her breath fan across her lips, tried to keep her own from stuttering out of her lungs and all it would take was the slightest tilt of her chin, a few degrees closed—

Maria's hand came up to land on Carol's chest, just to the left of her heart. She went cold all over, like she’d been doused with a bucket of ice water.

"Don't," Maria said softly, a low note of warning in her tone. Beneath that was a weariness Carol couldn't bring herself to examine. "Not if you're just looking for someone to warm your bed tonight." 

Carol tipped back enough to look Maria directly in the eye, frowning. "If I only wanted one night, do you think I'd risk jeopardizing our friendship? That I'd risk losing you or Monica?" she choked on those last words, teetering, hurt.

Maria’s eyes had never left her face, as if she wanted to be sure the movements of Carol’s mouth were matching up with the sounds leaving her. ”You got a bad habit of jumping in blindly. Always playing the hero." 

"You don't need to be saved," Carol murmured, eyes flicking down to the plush line of Maria's mouth. They both smelt like stale sweat and beer and whatever the hell else managed to cling to them in the bar. 

“Got that right,” Maria said fiercely, and it seemed like Carol had said the right thing, because Maria spared no further time in crushing their mouths together. A tingle of heat shot down to Carol’s belly, scrambling to get her body back online. She cupped the back of Maria’s head, felt Maria’s fingers tangle in her hair, her free hand slipping into Carol’s back pocket, urging them closer, closer until they formed a line of warmth with no room for even molecules to bounce between them.

Maria tipped her head just so, nose bumping Carol’s. Her tongue probed for entry and Carol could’ve wept at the sensation. 

They curled up like that, not even out the truck yet. Not even inside. When Maria took her hand and pulled her into the humidity, into the shadows, the sky above was clear and the stars watched them in silence, diamonds speckling the velvet horizon.

"You're everything, you know that?" Carol breathed, palming the side of Maria's face as they swayed into each other’s orbit. "Everything I've got—you want it? S'yours." 

Maria let out an unsteady breath, said: "Don't you know it's the same for me?”

Carol’s heart was trying to spring through her ribs, tried to meet other the hammering staccato under her hand. It was grounding, knowing Maria was just as affected”Yeah. Yeah, I do." 

 

 

It’s worth the ache in her jaw, getting to see Maria boneless and sated. Carol wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, slipping up in bed with a dopey grin of her own. 

"Do you make everything a challenge?" 

Carol's grin only widened. She knew what Maria tasted like, was already yearning for a second helping. "Are you complaining?" 

"Hell no," Maria said, her hand's reaching out to hold Carol's hips, to tug her in. ”Not a bit.” 

 

 

It turns out— despite all the fear that it would— they are plenty capable of making their relationship work. 

Carol lived with Maria and Monica, only instead of crashing on the couch, she slept and woke to Maria curled against or around her. Both of them are early risers by design— they drink their coffee together, get to the airbase to run their drills and perform maintenance on their birds. Carol has her meetings with Dr. Lawson and sometimes Maria’s father brought Monica around for lunch at the greasy spoon ten minutes away and it’s easy, so, so easy to be present, to be there with the two of them     

She had her brother, once. A father and a mother, too. Two out of three were gone and she couldn’t care less where the last ended up.

She’s got clothes in Maria’s drawers, their shoes mingled together. A toothbrush in the bathroom. her favorite juice in the fridge. The receptionist at Monica’s pre-school knew Carol by name and face, is aware that if Maria can't be reached, they damn well could get in contact with Carol. Monica calls her _Aunt,_ but Maria once called her _Momma Bear_ when some snot nosed kid made Monica cry for no discernible reason other than maliciousness.

“You can’t stomp down there and— and what? Punch a second grader in the mouth?”

Carol folded her arms over her chest, glaring into the middle distance. “I can intimidate the little shit. Make sure he never messes with our girl again.”

“Monica can handle herself,” Maria assured her, and Carol knew that. Of course she knew as much.

Still, Carol picked Monica up from school a couple hours before she ought to and they filled their bellies with as much ice cream as they could eat without feeling sick. Carol snagged Monica’s cherry and Monica stood guard over her rainbow sprinkles fiercely. The instant they looked at one another, the both of them cracked up bad.

Sure, she and Maria have their disagreements and their arguments that end up with Carol on the couch curled under a throw blanket. She can’t sleep without Maria beside her, without her breathing near enough to monitor, and Maria, without fail, came downstairs by three forty-five to drag Carol back to bed. They can never stay angry at the other for long— they might both be stubborn, head-strong people, but they listen to each other. They have a mutual, unwavering respect she does not take for granted.

Carol wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

 

They get married in the fall after two years and seven months together, after five years of being in one another’s lives. 

There was no priest present— wasn’t anyone official to make the ceremony a binding one, but neither of them gave a damn. Maria had tugged on a pink sundress that hugged her curves and Carol wore her combat boots with a blue dress of her own because it made Maria sigh, long-suffering and enamored. It’s just the three of them, Monica having stepped into a pair of Maria’s modest heels and one of Carol’s button-ups that hung off Monica’s shoulders like an elephant skin. She’s got them kneeling in the living room and there’s a couple candles lit on the coffee table despite the sun streaming in through the open blinds and Maria’s got wild flowers in her hair and Carol loves her, loves them, so much she might cry.

“The brides can now present the rings!” Monica declared, waving her glittery fairy wand. She had an old Bible cracked open for appearances, but she wasn’t looking at it, was flicking her eye between Carol and Maria expectantly. “Well?”

They hadn’t sprung for matching bands. Carol’s ring was platinum and she planned to put it around her neck on the same chain as her dog tags. “Over my heart,” she murmured, cradling Maria’s face in her left hand and brushing their lips together briefly. Too briefly. “Where you’re always present.”

Maria’s was gold, meant to call on that old poem about how golden rings represent things that are everlasting, infinite, and strong.

“Look at you,” Maria said, blinking back happy tears. “You’re gonna make me smudge my mascara on my wedding day.”

Carol’d been silently crying for at least two minutes, must've gave the raccoons a run for their money. What a pair they make. “Stop being so beautiful then,” Carol told her damply. “S’making my eyes sting.”

In the end, Monica tapped them both on the head with her fairy wand, announced that the brides may finally kiss for real. She groaned when her mother got to her feet, helping Carol stand, too, so she might dramatically dip Carol— one of the purple flowers tumbled out of her hair and narrowly avoided ending up in Carol’s mouth.

They broke apart, grinning and giddy and higher than they’ve ever flown before.

 

 

Before the month was up, Carol took Dr. Lawson up on her mission, met Maria for a final round of pre-dawn drills. Kissed her hard and long in the hangar and pulled back smugly when Maria was left breathless. 

Before the month was up, Carol watched Dr. Lawson die by the hand of a man in a green and black suit. 

Before the month was up, Carol was dead, too. 

 

 

︽✵︽

 

 

Vers knows without tangible proof that the woman in the file is important. That New Orleans has value. _Maria Rambeau_ means something.

When her and Fury secure a flight out of dodge, she pushes the aircraft to go as fast as possible.

 

 

Looking at the child, the one with the wild curls and the beaming smile as bright as any sun, Carol’s first thought is this:

_When did she get so many teeth?_

It’s a strange thing to pass through her mind, but there’s the metallic clang of a wrench hitting the ground and the woman in the file is staring with wide, disbelieving eyes. Vers, unconsciously, is sure Maria Rambeau doesn’t believe in ghosts, but when her daughter’s arms wind around the would-be spirit’s waist, she stared for a long, long minute.

Her stunned silence was more telling than hysterical screams may be.

 

 

Everything Maria has to say— about her past, about their shared time together— makes Vers want desperately to break free from the thing scrambling her head. She wanted to wipe that heartbroken look from Maria’s face. Gods above, she has been in Maria’s presence for under an hour and she _wanted_ more than she can have, more than she deserves. She wanted to be this Aunt Carol for Monica, to be the person who left earth six years ago with such an intensity her teeth ached from it.

Goose winding around her ankles helped. Marginally. His squeaks and mewls made the corners of her mouth twitch and every hint of a smile did something to Maria. Made her brighten, took a bit of the strain from her posture.

The mutedly concerned glances Fury shoots her when he thinks she isn’t looking don’t help matters.

And Monica with those boxes. Unpacking the life Vers once had one dust bunny at a time only… she doesn’t spot any dust. The implication that these are things that are handled so frequently they escape settling under the ashes of time sent her throat seizing and Maria swallowed hard a few feet away.

She’s always near enough to touch. To settle in Vers’ peripheral.

Her fingertips gently skimmed over the photographs, eyes drinking in each of the smiles blooming on Maria's face. Noting how, in each image, she was looking to Maria with pure, unadulterated wonder, as if perpetually asking  _how could I have gotten so lucky?_ In any photo with Monica on her lap or squeezed between her and Maria, that prompt of sheer dumb luck only increases tenfold. Vers had been happy, here. Loved. Had loved fiercely in return. 

On Hala, she'd never wanted anyone like this. Wondered, now, if that lack of physical desire was her body's way of screaming  _there's no one else for you_. _There'll never be anyone else for you._

She felt Maria's eyes on the side of her face, saw her, more than once, move like she was going to cut Monica off. It was overwhelming, sure, seeing snatches of memories that Vers couldn't recall, but she'd put a photon blast through the front room if anyone stopped the sweet girl from speaking, from allowing Vers to drink in the anecdotes and file them away, from hoarding to her. 

"Hey," Fury said quietly. "Hey, Monica. Why don't we give them a minute, huh? Help me find Goose. I don't think he's eaten today." 

Monica took one last look at Vers, lingering like she was terrified she'd vanish if so much as blinked. 

"I'll be here," Vers assured her.

And Monica nodded, so full of trust Vers’ lungs made to burst. "I know." 

Without the presence of two other people, the room feels so much larger and shrank to the size of a matchbox all at once. Maria's still watching her and Vers still gingerly moving the photos around, trying to string them into a semblance of chronology. 

“I’m sorry,” she said to the silent space.

Maria’s voice sounded like so close to giving out, but she cleared her throat, forced the upset down. Behind her breastbone, Vers’ heart threatened to plummet. “What for?”

_For leaving. For not being enough. For not fighting harder to get back here._

“So much. Too much.”

“You ain’t got anything to be sorry about," Maria told her, equally quiet and Vers wanted to believe that, but she couldn’t. Not with the thin veil scarcely concealing Maria's heartbreak, not when Vers was more than positive that even with Maria's honesty, there are things that remained unsaid. 

 

 

Her name is Carol.

Carol Susan Jane Danvers. Here she’d gone and laughed at Fury for having three names and she’s got four. When she secured a moment to herself, Vers— Carol, _Carol_ — sounded each of them out on her tongue. Weighed them. Let the letters cling and skitter off her teeth, clutched at every syllable as tightly as she did Monica’s insights.

 

 

She can’t sleep. Carol laid on the couch for two hours before she swung to her feet and took the stairs. It’s second nature, hooking the corner and going to the second door on the right. She’s barely raised her fist when the door whipped open, Maria making to stride out. Carol’s improved reflexes are the only thing keeping them from bumping heads.

"I remember you," Carol blurted, trying not to burst apart when hope sparked in Maria’s eyes. She’d been exhausted, eyes heavy lidded and unfocused, but she’s fully cognizant, now. "More than just... you." 

_It's my face between your legs. My hands on your body. Your hands on mine._

Her face does something. Rippled like she’d taken a bullet. Like Carol had shot her. Maria's hesitance was palpable, but her curiosity won out. ”Thought you said it came in flashes." 

"It does," Carol admitted, mouth thinning. "Being here, around you it... clears. Not perfectly, but it's like seeing the sun's just behind the clouds. Like everything's right there just…

"They made me forget you," she croaked, and Maria nodded, a jerky tilt of her head, in nothing but a baby blue bathrobe that Carol thinks— _knows_ — was hers, once. "I lived for so long thinking I had nothing, no one else in the galaxy to give a shit about me and all this time... I had you. Had Monica. I never want to feel that again. Hollowed out. Emptied for... for someone else's agenda."  

Maria's eyes softened and it gutted her, knowing this woman mourned for her, grieved her, loved her and Carol had no idea she was out here, waiting across the universe.

"Come here," she said, an order and a plea in one and what could Carol do? Say no? “Can I touch you?”

“Yes,” she said, so fast Maria had scarcely finished her question before the affirmation burst forth. “Please. _Please.”_

Tender hands, hands that are familiar with her body in a way that sends her head spinning trace down her torso. Maria lingered at Carol’s breasts, not long enough, though, before she’s tracing back up to move the sweep of blonde hair from Carol’s neck, her mouth pressing kiss after sweet kiss along a tendon there. Carol’s hands found Maria’s back, dragged down her sides to slip around and cup her backside, tugging her close, tipping their pelvises together.

“Bed?”

“Hell yeah.”

"We'll have to be quiet," Maria said, snorting in part at Carol’s enthusiasm and at her incredulous look. "Monica is one door down and an international spy is across the hall.”

Carol had found her way to the tie of the robe, was one flick of her wrist from having an eyeful of Maria in her midst. “Discretion. Right.”

That Maria knew the damage Carol could do, had seen what she was capable of, and was happy, eager, even, to be touched in return? She’d find herself soothed by that for years to come. The way they touched one another was nothing short of worship— she kept her eyes open to avoid missing a second.

Still, her hands were careful and for all her body buzzed, there was no sense that her photon canons were going to burst a hole through the wall, the bed, the ceiling. Maria did that to her. Set her nerve endings alight in the best possible way. 

“Help me make a new memory,” Carol breathed, back arching off the mattress under the other woman’s ministrations. “Show me what I’ve missed.”

Maria did not disappoint.

 

 

(“I love you,” Carol panted, the coil between her legs on the verge of bursting. “I know I do.”

Each kiss grew messier, each quirk of Maria’s fingers faster and more erratic. “Would it scare you if I said I never stopped?”

“No. Not a— _ah,_ baby— not a bit.”)

 

 

"Here," Carol pressed the communicator into Maria's hands. She was so steady and when she gripped back at Carol, Carol was helpless to grip at her. "Press that button. The silver one." 

Maria did. The star emblazoned on Carol's suit glowed briefly, sent a tingle down her arm as a live hologram of Maria manifested from the small console in her gauntlet.

"I modified the Kree tech. No matter how far I might be, we can talk. I can see you." 

Maria looked through the hologram, right at Carol. “This is great, don’t get me wrong, but… don’t take another six years to come back. Baby, I don’t know if I could do that again.”

Carol’s eyes shuttered closed at _baby,_ the drawl of it in Maria’s mouth, and kissed her softly, once, twice, three times. She could stand there until the sun died out and get lost in the brown of Maria's eyes if she allowed it. She tried for humor even as her very atoms were willing her to remain grounded, to grow roots and stay on earth until she was physically dragged away. "Will you miss me?”

"Monica will." 

Carol's mouth twitched, threatened to tremble. "I didn't ask about Lieutenant Trouble." 

Maria sighed, muttered what she swore was _always pressing all my buttons, huh._ With greater clarity, though still no louder than a whisper, Maria said: "I always miss you when you're out of sight.”

“I’ll be back,” she promised, nuzzling the hand Maria stroked over her cheek, her eyelids, her jaw. “I just got you back, got Monica back. I won’t surrender that.” It’s a slip of the tongue, her conscious seizing the reigns: “I was so lucky to have you both once— I’d be stupid to walk away again.”

“Yeah, you would,” Maria admitted, wetly.

“I’ll be back,” Carol repeated, firmer, leaving no room for doubt. By some miracle, supported by her blurry recollections, she was positive the look on Maria’s face meant _I believe you._

 

 

︽✵︽

 

 

It's doesn't take six years. 

She managed to go back for week-long stints every four or five months. The gaps are awful, and over the course of twenty years the greatest span of consecutive time she stays is one month and three days. Even with the time off-planet, the communicator is used frequently enough that when Carol arrives in person, she doesn't miss a beat. 

Not once does Fury’s pager beep at her hip.

(There is a first time for everything.)

 

 

When the so-called Avengers, a team of advanced persons that Fury apparently threw together in Carol's absence have talked themselves in too many circles to count, she interrupts with: "I have to go. I... I have someone. I need to see they survived. I— I just—"

"Go," Rogers said softly. Eyes blue and heavy with understanding and she doesn’t wonder who he’s lost, because if she does, Carol will spiral into her own potential losses. Romanoff looked like she wanted to protest, but Banner just kept folding his hands anxiously and Rhodes’ kept avoiding eye contact, like she was too bright.   

She doesn’t say she’ll return. Rogers seemed to get that, too.

In all their time, the communicator never stopped working. Never had it gone completely silent, without even the soft static of a line searching for a connection. Carol flew fast and hard and she landed in Maria’s front yard in minutes. It’s the same house their lives began in on the outskirts of New Orleans, with the willow trees and the outdoor workshop, only there's a drape of silence, of foreboding, attempting to smother the land. 

The front door was unlocked, though Carol threw her weight against it hard enough to knock the door clean off its hinges. She can’t make her throat work, can’t speak and she bursted into the living room, swept through the kitchen and she felt the blood run from her face at the sight of a pile of ash on the checkered tile.

“No,” she whispered, swaying into the doorway, gripping at the threshold and leaving splintered wood piercing her palms. Grief threatened to drown her, to pull her down to depths she didn’t wish to see. “ _No_.”

There was a gasp at her six and Carol wheeled around.

“Thank God,” Maria breathed, voice rusty with disuse. “Carol?”

A high-pitched sob ripped out of her chest, sent her staggering to wrap Maria up in her arms, kissing any part of her Carol could reach. She was as beautiful as ever, silver hair speckled her temples. Laughter lines bracketed her mouth and her frame shook against Carol’s, tears mingling on their cheeks.

“I’m here,” she said, hand fisting in Maria’s nightgown, stroking down the sturdy column of her spine. “I’m right here, baby. I got you.”

She did not ask who’s ashes were mere feet away. She didn’t need to, not with how Maria trembled and wheezed into Carol’s collarbone, how when Carol touched the silver chain with their girl’s name on it at Maria’s neck her beloved let out a noise like a wounded animal. Still, the confirmation felt like a knife had been slipped between two of her ribs. 

It wasn’t autopilot that made her mouth move, wasn’t even the need to comfort, to smother any and all pain coursing through Maria’s veins. This Thanos, this destroyer of worlds and wielder of the Infinity Gauntlet the Avengers had mentioned, would pay for what he’d done. Sheer determination led her to say: ”I don't know how, but I'm going to bring her back. I'm going to bring them all back.”

Maria’s eyes were swollen, red-rimmed. This was clearly not the first time she’d cried today, but there was no doubt in her face and Carol would give her the universe if she so desired. ”Is it crazy to say I believe you?" 

"Yeah," Carol laughed damply and without mirth, her eyelashes clumping together with barely repressed tears. "Yeah, it kind of is." 

**Author's Note:**

> okay real talk??? that mid-credits scene??? I screamed. my heart fell out of my ass. seeing my mans Steve in a white t-shirt, no expression, Going Thru It only for Ms. Carol Danvers to roll up? I'm 110% ready and completely unprepared for A4.
> 
> Come scream about this movie in the comments! Every comment ya'll give is like a shot of serotonin directly injected into my brain so thank you!!!


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